


all my heart

by thisapathy



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arguing, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Valentine's Day, and plotless, in which Ron and Carl would be boyfriends but Ron is with Enid so, lots of Ron/Carl undertones, this is kinda incoherent tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-19 17:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5975842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisapathy/pseuds/thisapathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The idea of planning a special day for both of them pops up into Carl's mind when Ron tells him that he's taking Enid shopping and out to eat Sunday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all my heart

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't really written anything of substance in a while, and this is hardly that. however, i have some things planned so stay tuned ❤️
> 
> ironically(?) this was written while i listened to a ron/carl playlist

Rick and Carl aren't a traditional couple in any sense of the word. Carl is half kid, half wife. He goes to school and does his chores and cooks dinner and spreads his legs almost every night for Rick (not that Carl minds). But he also works part time as a sacker at the grocery store.

Tonight is particularly slow so Carl stands in front of the plastic bags at the end of the conveyor belt playing with the zipper on his jacket. Ron looks like he's absolutely dying; he's leaning on everything, and he actually closes his eyes for a split second.

Carl leans over and gives him a soft shove. "Wake up."

Ron jerks awake and groans. "I'm beat. Take the rest of my shift so I can go home."

Carl looks at him dumbly. "I have, like, ten minutes left." He checks his phone and he actually has 4 minutes left.

"Keep me awake till you go."

Carl laughs and walks around to where Ron's standing, ready to slap his face. But Ron catches Carl's hand mid-air. He holds it for a second and Carl is briefly reminded of the fact that if he weren't with Rick, he'd totally go after his best friend.

"I meant talk to me, ask me shit."

Carl sighs and rolls his eyes, not that Ron is looking. He pulls his hand free. "How was school?"

"Sucked."

"Have plans this weekend?"

"Going shopping with Enid. She wants new shoes or something, then we'll probably go eat somewhere. Wanna come? Third wheel valentine?"

Shit. Carl actually forgot about Valentine's Day. At first, he doesn't really care. Then then he remembers that this is his and Rick's first Valentine's Day together and as stupid as it sounds, Carl wants to make it special. Not special, special, but he wants to cook something new and buy something to wear and maybe go to the movies. "Nah, I think I'll pass. Thanks, though."

"Or I could ditch Enid and we could do something," Ron shrugs. He looks at Carl poker-faced, and Carl thinks that Ron is actually being serious.

"Don't be an asshole. Do you work tomorrow?"

"Noon to six," Ron says with a sigh. 'What about you?"

"Eight till four." Carl checks his phone and it's 11, so he quickly checks with his supervisor before he's cleared to go. "Text me," Carl calls to Ron over his shoulder.

Outside, Rick is waiting for him. Carl climbs in the truck and leans over, kissing Rick's cheek. The parking lot's dark; no one can see them, so Carl whispers 'hey' and kisses him again.

"Hey," Rick echoes. He puts his hand on Carl's cheek just for a moment, kissing his mouth lightly. Then he puts the car in drive and pulls out of the parking lot. "How'd work go?"

"Slow, but I was talking to Ron and it gave me an idea."

"What's that?"

"You're off Sunday, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good," Carl comments. "I wanna do something."

"Like what?"

He looks down at his hands in his lap. He doesn't want it to sound too stupid, too needy or overly emotional. He guesses that he wants to plan a date for them, but he doesn't want to call it a date. He's not sure how Rick would take it. Or maybe he's just over thinking all of it.

"I was just gonna cook something and thought maybe we could go to the movies 'cause it's Valentine's Day."

Carl feels Rick glance over at him with an amused smile. "Like a date?"

"No," he answers quickly. But the more he thinks about it, he guesses it's kind of like a date. "Just food and a movie."

"Or we could just have a night in." Rick reaches over, setting his hand on Carl's knee before sliding it up the inside of his thigh.

Carl gently swats Rick's hand away, resting his head against the window. Honestly? He wants to. His dick says yes but his heart says no because he's tired as fuck. "I have work in the morning," he says, chuckling.

"Oh, right. Forgot." Rick reaches up and runs his fingers through Carl's hair, massages his scalp and strokes the edge of Carl's ear with calloused fingers. It's ridiculous how much Rick touches him, needs to touch him, but Carl doesn't mind. He likes it, especially at the end of a long day. "You gonna drop me off and take the car?"

"That's the plan."

"I promise I'm working on getting you a car."

"It's fine, Dad, really. I can wait."

Rick finally drops his hand and puts both of them on the steering wheel. "Wouldn't kill your mom and Shane to help," he mutters.

Carl doesn't really know what else to say. He knows how Rick feels about the whole situation; he won't ask for a dime of child support unless it's for Christmas or Carl's birthday. There's still so much bitterness that sometimes Carl wonders if Rick will ever get over it. They've been together almost a year and Rick still gets himself worked up talking about the affair, the divorce—all of it. Carl doesn't understand and sometimes he wonders if Rick is with him out of spite. It's easy for these thoughts to creep into the corners of his mind, even when Rick pulls him close and kisses just below his ear and whispers 'I love you.'

The rest of the drive is silent. When Rick pulls into the driveway and cuts the engine, Carl doesn't wait for him to get out before he goes inside. He goes to Rick's bedroom, strips out of his jacket and jeans and quickly runs his toothbrush over his teeth. He makes sure he's got his phone before he slides into bed.

Rick's not too far behind him, following much of the same process before he climbs in and pulls Carl close.

The room is dark, Carl's face illuminated by the glow of his phone screen. A banner at the top pops up—an iMessage from Ron—and when Carl opens it, he can't help but smile.

 _Night loser_ and a peace sign emoji. Ron and his fucking emojis.

Rick reaches over, taking Carl's phone from his grip and locking it. "Go to sleep," he murmurs.

Carl kisses the inside of Rick's arm softly before closing his eyes.

+

Rick wakes him with kiss that tastes like coffee and grape jam. He reluctantly climbs out of bed, showers, and changes into jeans and a t-shirt. He slips on his jacket before going into the kitchen. If he's going to be any use to anyone today, he's going to need massive amounts of coffee.

They leave the house at 20 till 8 and Carl quickly drops Rick by the station. He pulls into the grocery store parking lot and goes inside, clocking in two minutes early.

The morning drags on like Carl knew it would. Being here this early is stupid. Hell, the store being open this early is stupid; Americans are lazy and don't want to go grocery shopping at 8AM on a Saturday. Carl really doesn't know what they're thinking. So he buys a donut from the bakery and plays on his phone until customers start to trickle in around 9.

The later it gets, the more hellacious the lines get. His boss lets him take his 15 at 11:50. Usually Carl spends those 15 minutes outside in the fresh air, but instead opts to spend them in the break room with a Coke looking for a recipes to cook on his phone for tomorrow.

The door to the break room squeaks open and Carl thinks nothing of it until an arm puts him in a choke hold and a ridiculously cold hand covers his eyes. Carl tries not to laugh as he pries Ron's hand away. But Ron keeps his arm loosely circled around Carl's shoulders as he peers onto his phone. "What are you doing?"

"Looking up recipes."

"Hm." Ron lets go, hopping up on the table next to his friend. "So the lines are terrible and we're probably going to die today."

"Have you even clocked on?"

"Not yet. I wanted to find you first."

Carl gives him a one-sided smile. "You and Enid still on for tomorrow?"

"Yeah, why?"

He doesn't really know what the point of asking that was. Well, he kind of does, but he and Rick have plans so that doesn't matter. He shrugs a shoulder. "Just wondering."

"You can come with us."

"I'm sure Enid wouldn't mind," Carl retorts sarcastically.

Ron slides off the table and heads for the door. "Tell me if you change your mind!"

"I will."

Carl's left alone again and resumes his search. He finds an easy steak dinner recipe and figures that Rick will love that. So he types a list on his phone and decides that he'll get the ingredients before he leaves work.

+

67 dollars later, Carl has ingredients for his and Rick's Valentine's dinner. He quickly goes home to put them away before he has to go to get Rick from work. He waits in the parking lot for maybe 5 minutes before he sees Rick walk out, hat in hand.

Carl's grinning when Rick gets in. He wants to kiss him, but it's daylight and they're in front of the station so he doesn't. "Hey."

Rick climbs in, buckling his seat belt. "Hey."

Carl backs out of the space and pulls onto the road, heading home. "Tired?"

"Yeah." Rick lets out a heavy sigh. "I have to work tomorrow."

Carl's head snaps to the side. What? _What?_ "What?"

"I know, I'm sorry, Hernandez asked if I'd cover his shift. Extra money, I figured—"

"But you told me you were off. I already bought stuff to cook. I spent sixty-seven dollars on food!"

"I'm sorry. I need the money."

Since when did _we_ become _I_? "You need the money," Carl retorts with a snort. "Never mind that I wanted to do something special with you. Fuck that, right?"

"Watch it," Rick snaps. "We can still do something after I get off."

"Forget it," Carl snaps. That's not the point, it's not the fucking point! The point is that he specifically asked Rick to do something special with him, made sure Rick was off tomorrow so he could plan something. He's trying, he's trying so fucking hard and sometimes he feels like Rick doesn't care.

Several minutes of tense silence later, he pulls into the driveway. Again, he doesn't wait for Rick to follow him inside. He goes straight to his room, typing a text to Ron. If there's any way Carl can not stay in this house, he'll be forever grateful.

_Plans tonight?_

_Nope, wanna hang?_

Carl's hands are shaking he's so upset. _Can I stay over?_

_Yeah, be there in 10_

Carl tosses his phone onto the bed and quickly clears his backpack of school stuff. He replaces it with a clean pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. He grabs his phone charger and goes downstairs.

Rick is fixing a sandwich in the kitchen when Carl grabs a Mountain Dew from the fridge. "I'm spending the night at Ron's house," he says shortly.

"His mom say it's okay?"

Carl shrugs, refusing to look at his dad. “I guess so.”

“You didn’t think to clear it with me first?”

“No,” he snaps, “because you didn’t clear it with me before you took someone’s shift.”

“I don’t have to ask your permission, Carl.”

“You should’ve considered me!” he screams. Yeah, he’s hurt, but he’s also fucking pissed.

“We can still do something after I get off! Everything doesn’t have to be either or!”

“I _told you_ I wanted to do something special.”

”You need to learn to compromise.”

“Is that what I am to you? A compromise? Because Mom left?”

“Hey!” Rick snaps.

Carl just shakes his head. His phone vibrates in his pocket and he checks it; It’s Ron saying he’s outside. “I’m leaving. Enjoy Valentine’s Day by yourself because I’m not coming home,” he says, walking to the front door.

“Carl. Carl!”

But Carl ignores him, and Rick lets him go.

+

Ron’s house is fun like it always is. Jessie orders them pizza and makes them cookies and they watch a movie with Sam until Ron admits that he’s tired, and then they go up to his room where Carl lies on the floor. Ron says they can share the bed, but his bed is small and Carl is fine with sleeping on the floor.

In the quiet of the night as they’re falling asleep, Carl licks his lips and whispers, “Am I going with you and Enid tomorrow?”

“Do you want to?”

“I don’t wanna be home,” Carl admits. “I was supposed to hang out with my dad but he took someone’s shift. I’m kind of pissed; we were supposed to go to the movies.” He leaves out the part where he was first going to cook for Rick, then they would go to the movies, and then they would come home and spend a good 2 hours in bed before actually settling down to sleep.

“You can come if you want. I mean, Enid’s gonna be pissed but she’s always pissed. I get tired of it.”

“So why don’t you break up with her?”

“Because I don’t want to. It’s not ‘cause I wanna stay with her, I just don’t want to go through all that breakup shit.”

Carl doesn’t even know why the question comes out of his mouth or where it comes from: “Do you love her?”

“No,” Ron says easily. “I’ve tried, but... It’s hard. Like, I know I should break up with her but I’m not doing it because I don’t want to deal with it. How fucked up is that?”

Carl laughs a little. “At least you recognize it.”

“Yeah. I mean, I really used to like her. But then I tried loving her and I can’t. When you really love someone, it isn’t hard.” Ron leaves the end of his sentence hanging like he wants to add something else, but this conversation is getting far too deep for Carl’s comfort. He’s tired, so he just stops talking and eventually falls asleep to the hum of Ron’s ceiling fan.

+

Carl wakes up at noon. Ron’s already been awake for a while; he’s showered. But when he tells Carl there are pancakes downstairs, there’s a little bit of sadness to his voice.

When Carl goes down to the kitchen Ron comes with him. They sit at the table and that’s when Ron says, “Enid broke up with me this morning. I texted her to tell her you were gonna come with us. She got mad like I knew she would.” He opens his phone to their conversation.

_Fuck you, I’m done._

Carl takes a bite of pancake and tries not to think about the fact that Rick is probably equally upset at work. But Carl's mad, too, and he feels justified in being so. “Wow, classy.”

Ron locks his phone, shrugging. “At least it’s over. I kind of feel like a dick. But hey, we can still go shopping and get food. I think my mom and Sam wanna go, too.”

Carl is glad to hear that last bit. Having Ron’s family there makes it seem like less of a maybe-couple thing and more like a casual Sunday. He finishes his pancakes and then goes upstairs to get his stuff together.

+

They’re at the mall from 2 till it 6. Carl buys a pair of shoes and a few t-shirts. He checks his phone to see if Rick’s called or texted; he hasn’t. He’s tired by the end of the day and almost falls asleep in the car on the way home.

Jessie drops him at the end of the driveway.

“Thanks for having me,” Carl tells her, turning to Ron, “see you tomorrow.”

“Bye,” Ron says before Carl shuts the door. “Text me!”

Carl nods, closing the door. Rick’s car is in the driveway so he knows he’s home, and he doesn’t want to deal with it.

When he walks into the front door, he’s hit by the smell of food. Upon further inspection, he finds Rick in the kitchen cooking. There are red roses on the kitchen table. Are those for him? That’s so incredibly romantic and sweet and not like Rick at all—and Carl is upset at him still.

“I’m home,” Carl mutters, backpack slung over his shoulder.

Rick turns to him and he looks so rough and tired, but he manages a smile. “Hey.”

“What’s this?”

“Food because you’re probably hungry. Flowers because I’m a sorry asshole and you’re hard to buy for.”

Carl looks down, unable to hold back a small smile. He lets Rick approach him and pull him into a hug. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I should’ve asked you about taking that shift.”

Carl nods, dropping his backpack on the floor and wrapping his arms around Rick tightly. “’M sorry too. I just... I don't know. Things are hard lately, and confusing. I specifically told you what I wanted to do and that I bought food and...”

"I'm sorry," Rick repeats. "So instead, I'm cooking for you and you have flowers." He pulls back a little, slotting their mouths together in a soft kiss. He runs his fingers through Carl's hair and Carl leans into him, curling a hand around Rick's neck.

Rick pulls back a few inches to look at Carl, one arm still around his waist and a hand in his hair. "How 'bout instead of going out to the movies, we stay in and watch one on the couch?"

Carl is tired from shopping and he doesn't feel like going anymore anyways. And what Rick's cooking smells amazing, and the roses he bought are beautiful. "Okay," he agrees. Though, something tells him they're not going to be doing a whole lot of watching.


End file.
